1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates broadly to bookmarkers and more particularly to a bookmarker in which the number of the reading page of a book can be registered and displayed. More particularly, the invention provides a bookmarker which has parallel aligned slide members that will register selected numerals from 0 through 9 in window viewing areas that are provided in the device.
2. State of the Art
Bookmarkers are well known and commonly used by a reader of a book to indicate the reading page of a book, i.e., the page on which the reader was reading or beginning to read when reader put the book down to do something else. Bookmarkers commonly take the shape of a flat piece of paper or the like as well as a ribbon of cloth that is positioned between the page of the book and on adjacent page.
In U.S. Pat. No. 3,918,390 a bookmarker is disclosed having a circular rotatable dial mounted on a stationary plate. The perimeter of the rotatable dial is divided into 100 equal sectors, and the sectors are numbered 0 through 99 in sequence. The stationary plate has ten marks spaced around the perimeter of the rotatable dial. The ten marks in the stationary plate comprise the numerals 0 through 9. Thus, one can rotate the dial to align the mark 1 on the stationary plate with the number 21 on the rotating dial. This would indicate that the reading page was 121. However, one must remember that the proper mark is the 1 on the stationary plate. If the reader forgets whether the reading page is in the one hundreds, two hundreds or up to the nine hundreds, there are nine possible pages that could be the reading page, and the reader must somehow determine which of the nine possibilities is the true reading page. In the example just given, i.e., the true reading page being 121, the device of U.S. Pat. No. 3,918,390 would also show that the reading page could be any of the pages 15, 227, 334, 440, 546, 652, 758, 864 and 970. This is confusing, and it could be hard for the reader if the last page read was 227, 121 or 334, especially if the elapse between the time when the read quit reading and restarted reading is several days.
In U.S. Pat. No. 4,241,522 there is shown a teaching aid comprising four elongate slide members that are housed in a frame. The frame has four elongate open spaces into which the respective slide members can be positioned. When the slide members are moved into the open spaces, the entire face of each slide member and the indicia placed on that face is visible. The slide members can be moved downwardly from the open spaces so as to cover portions of or all of the indicia on the slide member.
The frame of the device of U.S. Pat. No. 4,241,522 requires four separate and distinct track and rail means for receiving the slide members and for allowing the slide members to move downwardly into the frame from the open spaces so as to cover at least portions of the slide members. A window is positioned beneath each open space in the frame so that any selected single indicia on the respective slide member can be displayed in its corresponding window. The purpose of the teaching aid of U.S. Pat. No. 4,241,522 is to aid in teaching mathematical concepts such as addition, subtraction, multiplication and division.